Reading the Rebuttal

The management of the Government Degree College Women’s, Anantnag verifies that the institution was headless and faced dearth of teaching faculty in several subjects, but avers that the college functions well, and online classes are managed with the existing faculty.

“The college is, no doubt, headless in the sense that we still have not got a new full-fledged principal after the superannuation of our ex-principal Prof. A. M. Dar. But that does not mean that the college is not functioning,” reads the statement.

“Many-a-times (sic) it so happens that a new full-fledged principal takes some time to be appointed but the college system is intact even in such a situation,” it reads.

The convener academics has also stated that the institution has an officiating principal to look after the college affairs and an Academic Monitoring Cell that is taking care of the academics of the college even in these times of lockdown.

This newspaper in its previous story had also quoted the officiating principal of the college who had stated that the institution was facing an issue as the academic arrangements continuing on court orders were not given any classes as per the directions of the higher education department.

The Convener Academics though tries to rebut the contents of the previous story, wherein it was mentioned that the college faced dearth of staff, goes on to state that the college was facing shortage of faculty in many subjects for which they have written to the higher authorities.

“No doubt we are facing shortage of faculty in many subjects for which we have written to the higher authorities and things are under process, but our permanent faculty is taking the burden and engaging classes for all the subjects,” the statement reads.

This newspaper in the previous story had quoted the nodal principal of the Kashmir Colleges Prof. Yasmeen Ashai who had acknowledged the grievances of the students and said the senior faculty member looking after the college was asked to hire the guest faculty to start the online classes. “It is true that the college has a dearth of teaching staff in some subjects but we have asked the in-charge to hire guest faculty to hold online classes for students,” she had said.

Further, the officiating principal of the college Prof. Mushtaq Ahmad was also quoted in the story saying that the online classes were held continuously for all students of all the classes.

“But we have been told by the higher ups not to allow the academic arrangements continuing in the colleges on status quo to take online classes of students,” he had said.

The college statement also reads that so far as the academic arrangement faculty on status quo is concerned, their case is sub-judice and the college has no role in allowing or disallowing them. “It is their discretion whether they want to take classes and be a part of the team or not. But our permanent faculty is continuously taking classes and we will not allow these circumstances to let our academic standard down,” it reads.

About conduct of the online classes, the college statement reads that in many subjects, students are themselves not in a position to join the live interactive classes due to their own problems.

“In many areas they are having network issues, and in many cases, students do not have their own mobile phones and have to wait for their parents to give them their phones for interactive online classes. But we have a system to take care of all such students also,” the statement reads.

The college statement reads that they have issued a Central Online Timetable for all subjects in all the streams and are holding online cases regularly for 2nd and 3rd semester students.

“So far as the ONLINE mode of teaching is concerned, it is not only about Live Interactive Classes but we have other modes of online teaching as well, which many people forget as the mode of teaching,” it reads.

Keeping in view the contents of the previous story and the statement issued by the college, the correspondent stands by the story wherein it mentioned that the college was headless in a sense that it was without a permanent head, and is also facing dearth of teaching staff. The impressions generated by any story can always be subjective, though.